Filed To Story: The Lingering Kiss of Farewell Novel
“She lied to us about the phone, dad.”
He got back.
“You also lied about the phone, boys.”
He sent right back.
“You two lied first. Now you know it’s not a nice feeling to be lied to.”
Ah, he thought after he read his own message, that was what she was doing, making them or trying to make them understand how it felt to be lied to. It wasn’t a nice feeling at all.
“Please boys, go downstairs and apologise to your mother. Do not call her mean, parents have to discipline their children for lying.”
He sent back and put his phone down.
He wanted to tell them that being grounded was nothing compared to getting a belting, like he had back in the day. To keep him on the straight and narrow. Wil had stated a child like himself would be easy to raise. But he’d not been, never accepted he was wrong even back then. He’d also gotten bored easily, and had pulled things apart to see how they’d worked.
The T.V. his dad’s radio, the microwave. He’d gotten in real trouble for that one and not only gotten a belt to his backside, he’d been grounded as well. None of his behaviour had really changed until his parents had bought him his first computer at 10. That had solved all his boredom.
He doubted very much that taking away their tablets and Nintendo meant they had nothing to do. They probably had a TV, and they had that phone which they would likely know how to download games on because they had tablets, they could do that on already. They probably had a million boardgames and colouring in books, puzzles for their age bracket, and likely had Lego and cars to play with.
It wasn’t that harsh a punishment, and she’d given them back that phone… it had only been three days, not the week she’d told Wil it would be. She’d punished them on one hand but still given them what they wanted with the other. A means to talk to him. He now also wondered just how much those boys were into technology. Were they in fact like him and Marrin? Or did they just have games on there to entertain themselves?
He wondered if he could get Marilyn to actually talk to him, have the boys give her the phone with a message from him to her on it. Though the boys would read that themselves and could decide not to pass it along if they didn’t like it, and he knew it. So he left that one alone. It was probably just best to wait and apologise in person.
He could also send flowers, he supposed. He did know her address, but then again he wasn’t supposed to know that either. It would just remind her that he’d breached their agreement. Which would in all likelihood just make her more annoyed. There was nothing he could do he realised, or not right this minute.
Marilyn
She could see the boys hovering at the top of the stairs, kind of peering around the corner at her. They didn’t have a bedtime on a Friday or Saturday night. It was nearly 8pm now, and although she was sitting on the lounge in full view of the stairs that led up to their floor, she was currently editing a chapter.
She wondered if they were looking for a snack or something to drink, perhaps. They did have their own bathroom up there, so they could get water from the tap, so it had to be food they were looking for. They had plenty of things to do up there, including watching TV. She’d not taken the remote for that away.
They’d been up there in their room now for just about four hours, and she knew either they were hungry or looking to be allowed out of their rooms already. She, however, was not going to back down on this stance she was making. They didn’t think they’d done anything wrong that much she knew. Until they did, they could stay in their rooms.
“If you want a snack, boys, just ask.”
She commented, turning her eyes towards them, only to see them duck back around the corner, and she could hear them whispering to each other in hushed tones.
She let it go, and packed herself up half an hour later. They’d still not come down here or told her what it was they wanted, so she made herself comfortable on the lounge and put a movie on for herself.
Only to have both boys come down the stairs, run over and put pieces of paper on the coffee table and then run back up the stairs. She’d watched them but said nothing. Likely they’d been up there trying to get the other one to come down here and give her those folded pieces of paper. But neither wanted to do it and risk getting in trouble by coming downstairs.
She sighed internally, it wasn’t often she had to ground them. They weren’t normally what she would consider naughty, just cheeky, happy little boys that could usually entertain themselves all the time. They were twins that got along well. She reached out to pick up the two pieces of paper and unfolded them one at a time to look at them.
“I’m sorry mum, Vin.”
It had written on it and there were drawings of flowers on that paper, made to look like a bouquet. It even had a bow drawn across the stems.
The other stated
“I’m sorry I called you mean, Cal.”
And there were flowers of all colours over one side of the page.
Her eyes moved to the stairs, and they were both peering around the corner at her once more. She sighed Accepted.”
She told them,
“Though that is not going to get you out of being grounded.”
She told them, she could be swayed sometimes, but not this time.
“Yes mum.”
They nodded and were gone.
She did, however, get up and take them some snacks, sat herself down and looked at the two of them. It was time to have a proper conversation. To see if they understood what they’d done.
“Do you actually understand what you did and why I’m upset?”
she asked them.
“We broke the rules,”
Callum told her.
“It was more than that Callum. What you actually did, was to not only show Calvin where we were, but that I’d bought a new house.”
“But…”
“Stop, just listen to me. Hear my concern. What if I left Calvin Reeves and divorced him because I really did need to get away from him, to protect myself. Because he was a man that hurt me inside our marriage all the time… What if I left, never wanting him to know where I was to protect myself?”
she sighed heavily.
“That house he now knows about, because you two not only took that phone right to it, you texted him you were at your new house. Now he knows about it. That house, boys, was to be my place to run and hide from him once more if that needed to happen, and I needed to protect myself and the two of you, from him.
“Now he knows where it is, you gave him that, showed him exactly where it was, by taking that phone everywhere with you. That house boys wasn’t for me to just up and move us to. I told you when I bought it, it was to be our new home if things didn’t go well with Calvin, if he kept wanting to hurt me. That if things understood. worked out, it would just be a vacation home. You knew why I bought it, nodded and told me you
“That house was simply a back??p safety plan for all of us. You knew that I wasn’t just going to move us there and disappear away from Calvin. I also told you that it was up to you if you wanted to see him, if he could keep to the rules ordered by the courts. Not that we weren’t vanishing away, and you’d never know him. My word is good… Have I ever told you that you could do something and then changed my mind and not let you?”
she asked.
“No,”
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.